Sending gifts to others through delivery by a vendor is generally known. For example, it is quite common for a sender to contact a florist, such as, by telephone in person or through a website, and select a floral arrangement to be delivered to the receiver by the florist. It is also common for gifts to be sent to recipients that include items such as gift cards such as an iTunes card. Whole singing telegrams are passé, the singing telegram was an attempt to provide audio messages with gifts.
There have also been efforts to send gifts accompanied by audio message to gift recipients such as described in United States Patent Application Publication 2012/0059703 (McCoy). Unfortunately, the system for ordering personalized items with gift delivery, as described in McCoy, requires a central floral ordering system, central media server, and electronic communications with each florist. Given that the U.S. Census Bureau's County Business Patterns Report shows that there were 16,182 florists in 2010, a centralized floral ordering system requirement is simply unrealistic. There have also been attempts to create gift clusters as shown in United States Patent Publication Application 2006/0178946 (Agarwal). Again, Agarwal is also limited in that it relies exclusively on a central server.
U.S. Pat. No. 7,356,154 discloses an audio player activated by a greeting card so that when the greeting card is removed, the invention plays a verbal of a musical greeting when the card is removed. However, this invention relies upon a card being in place to prevent activation. Further, there is no ability to revoke or to obtain content as disclosed in the present invention.
Therefore, it is an object of the current invention to provide for a device that allows for gifting audio content without the need for gift vendors to subscribe or otherwise be connected to a central server while also allowing for personalized greetings and other audio content to be delivered with gifts.